


Memories of the 49

by bamboofoxfireproductions



Category: D.Gray-man, dgm - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Battle, Bitterness, Bookman Clan, Bookman Clan drabbles, Drabbles for all 49 Names, Front Lines, Gen, Genocide, Gore, Lavi - Freeform, Master and Apprentice, PTSD, Probably gonna be a lot of brutal stuff in here at some point, Psychological Trauma, Record Keepers, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tragedy, War, and probably rape warning, b/c that kind of shit happens a lot in war zones so yeah, battles, bookman - Freeform, dark themes, have been warned, nomads, obviously death, probably suicide warning, scribes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-17 13:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10595292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamboofoxfireproductions/pseuds/bamboofoxfireproductions
Summary: Everywhere you went, it was war, after war, after war. It didn't matter how many times you changed Names, became someone else; the world stayed the same - cruel, ugly, and unfair. Still, you held your head high, your eyes forward, and looked it straight in the face, and knew without doubt... history is nothing but human stupidity.





	1. Memories of the Core

Six years old.

What a damn foolish age to be deciding the course of the rest of your life. But you were six, and you think you know _enough_ to make that call.

_`To know what no one else knows.`  
_

_With that promise alone, I chose to become a Bookman._

Foolish, foolish child.

Foolish child, filled with _ideas_ and _dreams_ and _expectations_ of what that will mean. Visions full of _adventure_ and _intrigue_ like all those grand stories you heard, told off of the lips of soft-spoken parental figures and repeated by excitable youth.

_Adventure_ awaits you.

Mysteries that will be _your secrets_ to keep or tell as you wish.

The _tales_ you will tell around the candle fire at night, when no one can sleep and time is passed through oral tradition.

_Excitement_ fills you. It tingles in every pore, fidgets in every finger, _floods_ your mind and your heart.

You're six, and you just _know_ that your life will be _exciting_ , and you don't know that you are so, so foolish for thinking so.

You are just too damn young.

You are ignorant.

And you don't even realize.

But that's the reason why, isn't it?

Six years old, eager, seeing life through a tainted lens, where everything is _grand_. You're innocent, and innocence - as they say - is bliss. Willing to do what is asked of you, pining for acceptance and validation from those you look up to - literally. The perfect, vital age for molding however one needs you to be, to shape how you will think and participate in the world without having to _re-wire_ your perceptions.

You're six, and the world is _yours_ to explore, but it is not.

Leaving everything is no big deal to you. You had little to hang on to anyway. Very little was yours, but very much was _out there,_ just waiting for you.

It was waiting for you, and you _had_ to find it.

So, at six years old, too young, too deluded, you agree to sign your life to this task. This is who you are. This is who you will be now, and you are _so thrilled_.

_"I accept you as a successor to the Bookman line,"_ he - Bookman - says.

Its such a weird name, he thought... Bookman. Its almost like the name of a character in a story. _Bookman_. Why only that?

_"Hidden history refers to those excluded historical facts that are outside what is generally known. From now on, you will record this hidden history, all right?"_

"Yes!" There's no hesitation as you follow his heels, the old man looking over his shoulder and _down_. As the strong smell of _wheat_ fills your nose and the wind sweeps through the sea of golden stalks, and carrying dandelions on the breeze under a bright blue, near-cloudless sunny sky.

The waving flicker of that field, like waves on the ocean, mirrored by the sun against a canvas of bright azure was so beautiful, a fitting backdrop to _great_ things to come.

As you follow old-man Bookman, the discussion takes a turn.

Your name - your four-letter name - cannot stay. As an heir to Bookman, you must renounce who you _were_ , which means your name cannot remain. You must dawn a new one.

Its weird, but not an impossible adjustment to make. You're so used to answering to it, but you can learn, if that's what it takes to follow this course.

If its what you have to do to be a Bookman.

"What kind of name?" you ask, thinking of what sort of name you'd like. He tells you, a name that has the same number of characters as the name he started with. That's good, because your name is short and sweet.

It has to be impersonal, he adds. No ties. No attachments to anything. No naming yourself after friends or family, nothing like that. You think about it for a while, but he tells you it doesn't matter.

You don't really _need_ a name yet. In fact its better that you don't have one - that you get _used_ to not having one.

For now you are only Junior.

Junior Bookman, heir to Bookman. It is the only _name_ \- title, rather - that you will keep for a long time to come, until you, too, become just _Bookman_.

_Junior_ and _Bookman_.

Its so weird.

Its weird, but you'll get used to it.

Bookman plans to travel a long way, and that, too, is something you'll get used to. In fact, moving around is preferred, at first. Seeing new places is much of the reason you agreed to go along.

You travel through many places. Bookman is old, but no obstacle seems too steep for him to bypass. The same cannot always be said for you, but you are _determined_. Whether you travel a flat road, or try to scale past a _mountain_ with him, you are determined.

You keep following, and you try not to complain sometimes, and if you have trouble finding a way to get past something, Bookman waits. Sometimes he speaks, offers advice, and sometimes he simply watches in silence and expectation. When you finally get around something more difficult, he nods quiet approval, and you move on.

Times when you stop to rest for a time, Bookman shows you things. He teaches you ways to _fight_. The world - he tells you - can be a dangerous place, unforgiving to those who cannot defend themselves. The world - the _human_ world - trusts outsiders little, and so outsiders, as they are, must be able to take care of themselves, much as is possible.

You accept this reasoning at face value, even though it is so much more complicated than that, yet it is also so very simple. You don't think about what it foreshadows. It is simply the smart thing to be prepared for anything, isn't it?

So he teaches you proper form, and he teaches you stretches that will have the most benefit for them. He shows how to move, plays a little of Monkey See, Monkey Do with you, and every so often he moves a limb to the right place when you don't quite have it down. He shows you so many styles, fighting hand-to-hand but also with weapons. He shows how to manipulate another in a fight, both physically and psychologically.

You are young, and for all your youthful ignorance, you are still _smart_ , and you take to it well. You are eager to please Bookman, who makes sure you learn all these _things_ you never knew about before, and Bookman approves in quiet, passive movements, gestures, and on rare occasions he even gives a kind word.

Mostly his words are harsh, but sometimes they aren't, and those days are the best.

He doesn't only teach you movement.

He teaches you _perception_ , ways to look at thing differently, to see sides and angles you never would have thought to. To keep your mind open, able to accept things as they are, but still to question _why_ and _how_ they are, because to never question, blindly following only certain things, is unacceptable in their line of work.

He teaches how to survive, both in society and out of it. How to work, to make yourself useful with what skills you possess, sometimes that you never would have even thought off. How to survive the wild, what places make good locations to rest in, and how to identify things that will make staying alive easier, like what kinds of foods to eat or leave alone and how to find water and shelter when none not of your own or someone else's making is available. He teaches these things in easy summer, and teaches them still through the hard winter.

And he teaches you language. Language you already spoke, but never had words so advanced for. Languages you didn't, and that you hear on the lips of strangers as you and Bookman pass through.

And he teaches you a language that you only ever hear from the old man. A language specific only to their clan, that no other people in the entire _world_ except for you and him speak.

This language - like you - has no name.

It needs no name, as it has no country of origin, and no need for any others to reference, just as you have no home country to return to and no one waiting there to speak the words with.

And that is the best thing of all.

It is a _secret_ , and _no one else knows it_. You keep that knowledge close. You treasure it.

This language is _yours_ and you and Bookman are the only ones who even know it _exists_.

You learn something on your own. You learn to call Bookman _Gramps_ , and you also learn that he doesn't like it.

He tells you not to call him Gramps.

You ask why.

_"Because I am your teacher, not your grandfather."_

"But you're old," you tell him, blunt. Innocent.

You learn one more thing.

Bookman hits _hard_.

You learn another thing.

Bookman hates being called old.

You think you shouldn't do either one again, but you will. You won't know it yet, but you _definitely_ will. That's one more thing you'll come to learn: you like to razz people, and you like nicknames. So make that two things.

You live like this way for a year, just _learning_ things, seeing new places, and its _everything you hoped for_ and _more_. You are chosen, and you chose, and you are fortunate. There are so many things to learn, and it seems as if Bookman knows them all, and soon _so will you_.

You are seven, then, and you have learned so much. Bookman is pleased with you, and you are pleased with yourself.

And you are ready for the next stage in your training as the successor to the Bookman line.

This is the day you get your new - your _first_ of many - names. Bookman asks if you would like to pick it. You decline. You trust Bookman to give you a good one. A good one that means nothing, and yet, means everything, just like everything else Bookman has given you up to this point.

He thinks only for a moment, and then he decides.

_Jona_.

Jona Junior Bookman.

You grin at him, delighted.

Your first Name.

Your very first record ever.

Now, you are really, truly ready to start not just learning, but _being_ a proper Junior Bookman.

Today you have your first Name, and today, you will witness your first war.

And today, your eyes will open for the very first time.


	2. Memories of the 1st

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Graphic death, graphic gore, suicide. (this really went dark af lmao)

You are seven years old.

Today you will take on your very first of many Names to come – _Jona_ – and today you will witness your very first war.

It isn't exactly sprung on you. Bookman tells you exactly where you're headed and what you'll be doing, but your imagination doesn't yet go so far as _accuracy_ in matters of _life and death_. You're not to blame for that, for what child of seven truly knows the Hell that war looks like, unless they've already lived through it?

You didn't understand, but you thought you did. Not entirely, but enough, and you are so, so damn foolish when you do.

Nothing could have truly prepared you for that first time.

When you arrive, it is over the crest of a hill, overlooking a sprawling field, and at the top of another hill in that field is a fort.

Beneath it, in that field – a field that should have been tall, and flowing in gentle waves, and _so beautiful_ like that which you had first departed from, and like so many others you had tread through, but instead lies trampled and stained in dark _reds_ – are people, fighting.

People killing each other.

The smell hits you a little bit faster than the sight, and only a little bit slower than the sounds. The smell of _copper_ , – which you'll soon learn isn't actually copper – of smoke, of gunpowder, of dust, and sweat, and something else rotten you can't yet identify, but what you'll eventually come to learn is the scent of _fear_.

The medley of smells turns your stomach, but not as much as the _sight_ of it. Some shapes are too far away to see clearly, to witness the full extent, but others are near enough.

There are bodies – _human bodies_ – piled on each other and covered in blood. Those aren't the worst. Some are missing limbs. Some are torn nearly in half. The ground is an awful shade of dyed browns, blacks, and reds. The earth is upturned unnaturally, by impacts of canon fire, and dust chokes the air in a miasma.

And you see people fighting, mostly shooting from a distance, but some are also fighting in the fields with gun-mounted spears or even swords and machetes, _hacking_ each other to bits.

You hear them battle cry, and you hear them _scream_ when they're cut into, and you hear canon fire, and gun shots, and at one point you can almost _swear_ you heard the actual sound of someone's head _explode_ into shrapnel.

This…

…this is _nothing_ of what he'd thought to agree to, when agreeing to become Bookman's successor.

This is disgusting.

It's _abhorrent_.

It's _barbaric_.

You can't help but _whine_ your distress, coherency to put these agitated, horrified thoughts to proper words, all of those lessons on expanding into advanced vocabulary – especially for your age – failing you at the sight of it all.

You can't help but move closer, pressing against Bookman, who doesn't move but doesn't look particularly sympathetic either, because this? This is something that, for a Bookman, old and experienced as he is, is used to, and this is something you will need to grow used to as well.

There's no room for coddling and encouraging to look away.

You ask him why you are here, in this place, watching people kill each other.

He tells you this is history too. That this is the most important history.

He tells you that people are the least honest when they do the things that are most horrible.

He tells you how humans do not like to be seen in negative light, so they omit whatever makes their side look less favorable, and exaggerate what might otherwise make the opposing side appear less evil by comparison.

He tells you that of all things historically significant, wars, genocide, massacres… these are all things for which their kind is most guilty of excluding historical fact, be it for ulterior gain or out of shame.

You decide, later, yourself instead of off the words of Bookman, that much of the human history that "no one knows" is rife with stupidity and cruelty, and your ideals of what you thought knowing "that which no one knows" was foolish and naive.

You can't really agree, but you can't argue either – unknowingly or not, you _chose_ this path.

You _chose_ to become a Bookman, and this is what being a Bookman means.

To know that which no one else knows, and to never look away.

Bookman doesn't move. There are wars where you will be closer, _so much closer_ , but this is not that one.

Not this time.

Not this battle.

Later, you will know why. Bookman is protecting you, keeping you away from the fray because you're too distressed by the sight to not get yourself killed down there.

You simply aren't ready. Its your first war, and you're seven damn years old.

How could you possibly be ready?

He doesn't move, and he doesn't shake you off either, like a statue unwavering. You don't complain. You don't beg to leave. You do, however, tell him you don't like it. You tell him you don't _understand_.

You don't _understand_ why they're _fighting_ and _killing_.

He doesn't answer why.

Later, after so many years, after seeing so many wars, _why_ doesn't matter, because there are hundreds of reasons, and none of them really make a damn bit of sense in the end.

The fighting plays out, for hours, and each few minutes that pass, another falls, and another, and another, _and another_.

Eventually, at some point, there's a cease fire, and everything goes quiet, and that is the most unsettling of all.

Its quiet, and already, your ears grew used to the din, to the constant _noise_ of the distant chaos. You try not to think too hard on it, because you _don't_ want them to fight again.

Its over.

_Good_.

Its _over_.

Still, Bookman doesn't move, for a while. He waits, and watches, and he says nothing for the longest time.

Not until there is movement below, people casually picking their way through the field, around and over _bodies_ of the fallen.

Finally Bookman looks down at you, and he bids you follow him _closely_ , and he descends the hill towards the battlefield. You do as he says, hiding in his shadow, chest flighty with anxiety.

When he is noticed, he holds up his hands in a show of peace. He assures them the two of you aren't scavengers, introducing himself as Bookman and you as _Jona_ – you barely even recognize the name as yours.

They don't even think you – a child – and he – an old man – might be soldiers.

Bookman offers his services. He knows _healing_. He can aid them in transporting and caring for their wounded. Worn down, they can only accept the help that comes to them so generously. It won't be long before you learn the real intent behind this offered aid – to gain trust, and gather willing accounts from the survivors about the battle.

You and Bookman wander the fields, looking for survivors. What seemed awful from afar is so much more indescribable up close.

Farther away, you couldn't see the details of frayed, bloody flesh and exposed bone.

Farther away, you couldn't see the hollow stares of their horrid _death grimaces_ forever locked in their faces.

Farther away, you couldn't really _smell_ the pungent scent of scattered organs and blood and emptied bowels.

Closer up, all you could do was fight the urge to vomit, and lose.

Being even closer to the stained earth when you do doesn't help.

Its all you can do, to turn your face to the sky, _the bright, beautiful blue sky_ , and just try to breathe.

Breathe past the dust; past the gunpowder; past the blood; past the death; past the sweat; past the _fear_.

Clean, fresh air, high above you, untainted, _pure_ ; and so, so damn far out of reach.

Bookman is there, then, and you know it only because he puts a hand on your shoulder. He says nothing to you about yourself, no words of comfort, simply _come help me with this_.

You don't argue. You don't get upset with him.

You do find yourself disgusted. Disgusted with everything else that surrounds you. Disgusted with the dark color now on your pant legs from kneeling in the _grime_.

Quietly, still, disgusted but numb, you rise, and try to brush your knees off, and feel _disgust_ again when it only transfers to your hands and then back to some other unsullied part of your pants when you wipe them on your thighs, and you follow Bookman.

Follow him through the maze of bodies, of the dead, and the dying, and the wounded. Mostly, you act as his eye and his ears, looking and listening for signs of _survival_.

Every step is fighting for breath, and fighting against heaving. Sometimes, some of the sights you come across, you can't win against it, but at least by then you'd already emptied out what you had to expel.

Sometimes you hear a groan, or see someone move, and you call for Bookman and the others. Sometimes, its the sight of someone _not_ mangled that has you looking curiously for breath, or for a pulse – the way Bookman showed you earlier. One time, its a man coughing blood grabbing your ankle suddenly, holding on so tight you think he'll snap it, until Bookman and others come running and pry the grip free.

Bookman and others warn you – don't stray too close to the fort on the hill.

The battle is supposed to be over, but that doesn't mean the shooting can't resume. You heed those words well, always watching over your shoulder and listening.

Moving from the bloodied fields results only in ending up in bloodied tents, where the _noise_ hits again.

Here, there are no canons or guns being fired, but there are cries, groans, barking, _wails_ , _SCREAMS_.

There are people fighting, and other people holding them down.

There's wounds being cleaned, and then being stitched, and bandaged.

There are saws, and limbs being _amputated_.

There's the smell of hot metal, and _burning flesh_ , and bodily fluids of all kinds.

In one bed, there's a man with blood-soaked bandages around his head, drooling over himself, eyes faded like he may as well already be dead.

There's another, still alive, still _conscious,_ having loose organs rearranged to stitch him back up.

You won't even be able to _look_ at a butcher shop or a sausage for _weeks_ without feeling sick after this.

You try to look away, find _something else_ to focus on, and it ends up being another, covered in lacerations but no major damage, sobbing quietly and rocking himself, muttering incoherencies under his breath.

The poor man seems even more traumatized than you do.

You – seven years old, sympathetic, innocent, _unprepared_ – reach out the way Bookman reached out to you, just to put a hand on his shoulder, to maybe make things better.

He jumps, near straight to his feet, rocking on the balls of them, and his eyes flash, he throws a hit that completely floors you and makes you see stars in the dirt, and he _HOWLS_ at you.

_Screams_ in jagged, deadly rage _, "LEAVE ME ALONE. DON'T TOUCH ME. STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY!"_

You scramble away, startled, _fearful,_ just _trying to help!_

Bookman stands between you and him, but the man isn't interested in fighting. He goes back to rocking, frantic with himself, _blind_ and _dumb_ to the rest of the world.

Bookman tells you to leave the man be. Checks your face where the man hit you and does what he can to numb it. Tells you to make yourself useful and to be careful – not everyone here is in their right frame of mind now.

You do as he asks. You fetch things by request, moving quick and quiet, maneuvering through the cramped space easiest, being the smallest. You watch the surgeons work, reviled but also intrigued to see their skills at work, to see them put people _back together_ better than they were when first found.

You take out bloody bandages and rages, tattered clothes made unusable by the fighting, and return with fresh ones as asked. You move personal things to safe storage as requested, and with emphasized care, move weapons taken from soldiers to somewhere out of sight under the care of those nearby who escaped major injury.

You hear them spout off names for things – medicine – that you can hardly pronounce even hearing them spoken aloud, and you try to lock all of them into your memory as _important_ things, just like all that Bookman has tried to teach.

Its chaos, but its _productive_ chaos.

You don't really feel anything about it. You can hardly process it.

Seven damn years old, in your first war, helping in your first ever medical tent.

And it didn't feel like anything.

Not until that one jarring moment, shattering what fragile semblance of _coping_ that he was managing to maintain through everything with quiet compliance.

That one jarring moment, carrying another of many pistols out to be stored with the rest, still loaded – you've already learned to tell by the weight – when he jumps at you.

The one jarring moment the man rocking on the floor, chanting hysterics, leaps, and grabs the gun in your unsuspecting hands, and yanks the barrel into his face, and–

**_BANG._ **

Your breath stops with that shot, the echoes of vibration from the kickback trembling through _too small_ hands.

He reels with a crater in his skull, eyes rolled back, and he falls.

He falls _forward_ , and _his blood is on you_. Its splattered on your face, and its smeared all down the front, even though you backtrack so fast that you almost fall backwards through the tent walls yourself.

When your breath comes back, it strains in your throat, struggling, _clawing_ , and air gets in, but it _aches_ , and it comes in _fast, short_ bursts that only leave you more breathless.

You see spots, and you wheeze, and waver, and before anyone can even get close, you're on the ground and everything is going dark, deeper, _deeper_ into blackness.


	3. Memories of the 2nd

Seven years old, on only your first Name as Bookman's successor, and already your ever-growing perceptions of the world have been tainted a little blacker by the reality of _war_.

Your first Name then is Jona, which is ironic, because it brings to mind that one popular Christian story that people are so fond of repeating, and _just like_ in that story, this is one massive whale of a world to be swallowed by.

You almost wonder at times if this was deliberate, some sort of sick joke on Bookman's part, but the thought is likely as ludicrous as it is entirely false, and ultimately shaken away. Though in hindsight, you and him know the full cruelty displayed in each conflict, beforehand, there's no telling how ugly it will get.

Regardless, you are now Jona, who, at seven years of age, has witnessed your very first war, seen your very first bloody battle, played your part in the very first of many medical tents you will volunteer in, and feinted at the sight of the very first, yet never the last, violent post-war suicide of a broken soldier.

Its unlike the old man to show such concern, but Bookman does take the time to talk with you, to make certain everything is alright, and to put to detached, textbook explanation of everything that happened and why.

You listen with keen, yet passive, attention.

At least… that's how you attempt to appear. In reality, you are numbed to the deepest core with shock, your mind like a strainer, every word passing through like water between the cracks, leaving behind only the faintest drops of recollection.

It doesn't escape Bookman's eyes, and he's quick to snap your attention back properly.

You have the sense to look ashamed. He has the sense not to scold you.

Instead, he acknowledges: It is a trauma. There is nothing _invalid_ about it, but it is a matter to deal with none the less, and he has a few tricks on how to do so. Such tricks will not come immediately, but they will establish firmly with time and practice.

He invites you to sit with him, somewhere quiet. Undisturbed. You sit cross-legged, first without thought, but Bookman does as well, and he tells you to _sit up straight_. He shows you how to fold your hands, to close your eyes, to keep yourself postured upright instead of slumped.

Its _meditation_ , a tool for the mind, simple enough anyone can do, but wholly and irreplaceably important. He shows you deep breathing, and focusing on all senses besides sight, and while you find yourself noticing the faintest sounds of birds and the wind with a new appreciation, he starts going into the _battle_ and its _aftermath_.

Every detail. Every sight. Every smell. Every taste. Every sound. The man you saw gutted in the field. The man having a shattered limb cut away. The man who shot himself in the face.

Everything you don't want to remember, he talks about in vivid, casual detail.

He tells you not to shut it out.

Focus on it all. Keep it sharp in your mind. Don't let a single detail slip through and become forgotten.

Its hard.

Bookman knows its hard.

But you do as he says, even as tears flow unchecked down your face. Even as breathing comes in short gasps and hiccups. Even when a whine or whimper passes your lips, and you fidget where you sit because you _don't_ want to remember it.

Bookman is patient with you. Its a rare instance, but one you never forget. You're only seven, he tells you outright, and your mind isn't used to it yet. Its only natural that what you feel at everything is _fear_ , but fear can be mastered. What's more, being the age that you are, your mind is more easily and quickly adaptive, the adjustment easier to make than if you were older.

In short, you will learn to accept your role much more easily than someone older and more set in their ways.

Then, after all of this, he teaches you _compartmentalization_.

A Name for a bookman's heir is not merely a matter of something to go by. A Name is an alias; an identity, but for you it is also another tool. A separation of experience and Self, and you, in a way, are two identities.

You are Junior, and you are also Jona, and you must figure out where the balance between those two lies. That balance, therein, is who will experience and store what.

Junior is permanent – or as permanent as any name will be, for one day too you will also cast that aside to become _just_ Bookman – while Jona is temporary.

Junior exists to store what is most important. _Junior_ is the core of all Names, and it is Junior who dictates who and what each Name will be. Junior must always – _always_ – remain unmoved by what is in front of him, to be able to look at anything without flinching.

Each Name must follow certain rules set therein by Junior, but each Name will be different, _created_ with different traits, and bears the brunt of all things _shed_ as unimportant.

It is the Name which acts and reacts, in a manner appropriate to both the task at hand and satisfying the requirements of human interaction, and it is Junior who watches and evaluates but never becomes involved.

In a sense, Junior is the puppet master. The core who will always remain. The Names are only the puppets then, putting on a performance, and when that performance comes to its end, it becomes Junior's job then to cut the strings for good, again, and again, and again.

Explained that way, it becomes easy to understand the expectations. A puppet without its strings never rises again, but the stage is still set for another to take its place.

Bookman spends hours talking you through each raw experience, unwavering through every one of your tears, shaky breaths, shifts of discomfort, but with each one, these reactions become fewer and fewer.

They are things which merely are.

Things which cannot be changed.

Things you will see time and again.

Things that you should never, as an heir to Bookman, look away from, and next time, you will be a little more prepared.

There comes a point when calm returns, when there's a kind of detached _peace_ as you envision these things, mentally sort them and tuck them away, and _let them go_.

Once Bookman is convinced you will be fine, he quietly gets up, and leaves, and you continue to meditate on everything until tiredness leads you to rest. Unsurprisingly, the sights haunt your dreams as nightmares.

The days following mark the end of this war, which you and Bookman arrived upon the tail end of. Though in meditation, detachment from the reality is easy, its less so in the waking hours when you help Bookman retrieve re-tellings from recovering and dying soldiers, though none of it is half as bad as the sight of them before they were treated.

There are moments – moments of youthful naivete – that you want to offer comfort in some form or other. Bookman allows it at the time, but only because such shows of childish compassion make gathering accounts easier. Later, he tells you not to get emotionally invested.

Don't let feelings reach you, because once you do, that bias taints the records you are to gather. Its easy to feel drawn in by the plight of the wounded, to pity them as victims, but one must never forget that they too can be monsters on the battlefield, as much as anyone who tried to take their lives as well.

You spend much of these days off on your own, meditating, reflecting on all that you've seen, heard, and felt, and all that Bookman is trying to teach you. Bookman leaves you alone to your thoughts, but never unwatched.

Its not long before you and Bookman set off again, and in that moment that you do, you are no longer _Jona_ , but merely _Junior Bookman_ again. There's hardly a difference, at the time. Nothing feels different between the two, and you wonder at the time if it should be.

Being two different people should mean that something changes, shouldn't it?

But, looking back on it later, it will be evident that there was a change.

Reality and war is cruel, and without exception, takes no prisoners, if only in a figurative sense, because who one was going in is not who they are coming out, even as a simple observer on the sidelines.

Ultimately, _Jona_ may not have been much of a Name at all, but Junior had certainly started to harden and become set in stone.

Though you were technically _Junior_ for a year before that, you were so in namesake only, still not having begun your transition from when you used to be _Sage Rookwood_ , the boy who came before the bookman, until that first look at a true battlefield.

Its thus that _Jona_ may as well not have been a Name at all. Only in dawning your next name – _Cole_ – a little more than a month later, that you first begin to make _proper_ use of your Names.

You and Bookman walk for a long ways, following the long, ever ongoing trail of a railroad.

It would not be your first time seeing a train, though that first encounter had been something _enticing_ and _wonderful_ and you ate up every specific on how a _train engine_ worked with the utmost fascination for modern technology. There were even a handful of instances where you _rode_ on a train, unable to help but marvel at the passing scenery, the _feel_ of the wheels rumbling underfoot, or the breeze coming in through an open window.

This instance is less than joyous.

You follow the railroad for days, watching with interest whenever a steam engine chugs by, until you and Bookman are somewhere deep, _deep_ in the wilds, mountains and conifers surrounding you and your path as far as the eye can see, no civilization anywhere within sight. As the railroad twists through the trees like a snake, it disappears into a tunnel through the mountains, and waiting at the mouth of it is a halted train.

Though you never quite _forget_ the sight of a battlefield, a month and a half is long enough for such remembrance to begin settling, no longer a constant on your mind, intruding every thought throughout every day in every moment. Especially with the mental exercises Bookman has been guiding you through.

As such, though nowhere near as shocking as that very first encounter, its jarring when the first sight you come to see is piles of uniformed bodies being offloaded from military train cars.

You don't look away, though you could, but the sight turns your stomach. Its not like that field stained _red_ , nothing quite so revolting, but there are _so many_.

And this war, Bookman tells you, isn't likely to end in a matter of days like the last. _Jona_ was your very first rudimentary test as a Bookman's apprentice, but this will be where the trials truly begin.

You are stopped on the crest of the hill where the railroad meanders for but a moment, before Bookman resumes progress and you follow close behind. As you approach closer, there are crates, wagons drawn by horses, and more, and more, and more corpses.

At first they're offloaded from the trains in piles, tall as those offloading them, and then lined side-to-side in rows on canvas sheets laid out on the dirt just shy of the tree line. At first, you and Bookman are barely noticed as the living dig deep, long trenches for what you'll soon come to recognize as a mass burial.

Ideally, Bookman tells you, these men would all be returned home, or at the very least, given a plot in a formalized cemetery which could be easily visited. Most will simply be dropped here, lucky if the graves are able to be dug deep enough wild animals don't smell and dig up the bodies. Probably only those of affluent backgrounds or esteemed military recognition will make it back to be buried and mourned properly.

Many of them, even their personal belongings, and the clothes on their back if those are still in good enough shape to salvage and reuse, won't make it back, or be buried with them, instead becoming property of their country.

Then, Bookman goes about properly introducing himself to a man he recognizes as someone in-charge, based upon his dress and mannerisms, and the way others go about addressing him.

He offers you and himself to aid in odd jobs, such as bringing food and water to the soldiers and animals, in exchange for continued observation. You spend most of the day carrying bowls, buckets, and pots to and from, fetching whatever needs be delivered from one hand to another.

As you do, you and Bookman gather recounted tellings from the soldiers, much as possible. As an old man and small child, its easy enough to gather stories, though sometimes its more difficult to gather the full details yourself, as many of the soldiers hold back on details due to your youth.

Its no big deal, you tell them. No big deal, because you've already seen a battlefield. Already seen gruesome sights. Still, they aren't completely willing to tell _all_ that they saw to a child, sending you away in a huff.

When the train finally loads up and moves, you and Bookman travel with it, all the way to the front lines. In that time, you especially draw attention and become well known aboard the train, seeing as you are the only person there younger than fifteen, unmistakable due to your striking orange hair and eyepatch.

Bookman receives a great deal of pressures and scolding that he's taking you along towards a war zone, where children should never go, but the old man takes it in stride, never losing patience.

You, on the other hand, become both self-consciously anxious and a little bit insulted. Bookman knows what he's doing, you know even then, and you don't need _strangers_ disbelieving what you can handle and underestimating you.

You can _handle it_. That's why Bookman brings you.

Gramps, after all, is _infinitely_ wise. You trust him completely.

Your bitterness doesn't go entirely unnoticed, but the old man cautions you to not be upset by it. There will always be those who doubt, and they are better off ignored.

You take that to heart. No point in listening to those who don't know you anyway, right?

Within only a couple of days, the train reaches its destination, and its only another day or two by wagon before reaching the war zone.

The conflict, though not in full swing when you arrive, is definitely active. You can _feel_ the shift in the group arriving fresh as they draw near, tension filling the air thickly, reflected in every cautious or otherwise rigid movement. There's no gun fire or explosions, but there's a sense of _waiting_ , of a trigger just waiting to be set off.

The only question is who will make the first move.

Dug into the hillside are trenches, creating a maze of corridors through dirt and held together primarily by planks of wood roughly nailed together. Crates, rope, weapons, and ammunition all line the corners in high concentration, and there's a certain fidgety, almost _mechanical_ way that everyone moves about the space.

Its strange, and disconcerting. Hardly anyone moves with a sense of _normalcy_. Certainly no one is relaxed, even those who appear unbothered, or perhaps even _happy_ , to be here. The air is faintly sour, but try as you might, you can't pinpoint where exactly its coming from.

Mainly, now, while things are quiet, you take the time to wander the trenches, to make a mental map of where everything is in your head. You get met with a lot of looks, suspicious glances. More than once, someone makes a show of how you shouldn't be there, _who let this brat in here_? Three of those times end in being marched to the commanding officer posted there, only to have them be told you _are_ supposed to be there and to leave you be.

By day's end, you learn you're not very fond of _touch_ , rubbing your sore upper arm where more than one man grabbed and dragged you along.

You also learn one other thing, something you'll be foolish enough to _almost_ forget on a number of occasions in the future, but never fully.

A bout of curiosity as to the _other side_ , the enemy waiting in their own camp set-up not far away, overheard off of the lips of restless soldiers, leads you to try and climb up the side of the trench and peek your head out.

You don't make it very far, because someone grabs the back of your clothing and _yanks_ you down into the earth. Admittedly, you yell in surprise.

The guy who pulled you down gives you a stern lecture, cautioning to _never_ poke your head over the sight barrier. He demonstrates – with a stick and a head-sized ball of cloth – just why that is.

No more than three seconds pass before a clear shot ring out, and the ball of cloth explodes as a bullet passes straight through it.

 _Snipers_.

Many a soldiers' death can be accounted for by new recruits playing lookie-lou, and getting their heads blown clear off before they can even pick up a gun.

That could have too-easily been you.

You thank him fervently, grateful for his interference that before had you baffled and annoyed. Certainly, there will be moments later you grow too curious for your own good, but for the time, you take the lesson to heart and don't try again.

Days go by where nothing happens. Its a waiting game, but eventually the storm has to break, and when it does, everything is _much_ closer than it ever was the last time.

More often than not, you find yourself covering your ears, just to shut out the _din_ of guns firing, explosions hitting far too close, dust showering down all around. There's blood and injuries, but not a lot at first. Most of the dead and injured are because of bullet wounds, but not slashed to bits like the last war's battle.

There's a time when you just sit, head between your knees and palms over your ears, and stare into open eyes of a man with a bullet through his skull, blood slowly trickling down his face in a barely noticeable stream. The sight is far more forgiving, even perhaps a _welcome_ distraction, than the _noise_ raging all around you.

Screams of dismay and fear, baneful cries, the constant _pop_ of guns, the distant _BOOM_ of canons, and the muffled _PFFFFFMMP_ of canon balls creating craters in the earth. There's explosions. At one point, grenades and fire-bombs make it inside the trenches, sending people scattering, both willingly and _in pieces_.

You almost become one of the ones blown apart, but Bookman, staying near the entire time, is quick to move and pull you along.

The explosions manage to flush a number of the side you're hiding with out into the fields, looking for new positions to take cover. In looking for a new refuge, entire rows of soldiers are mowed down and fall, only a small number making it to safety alive, though few unharmed. Others, you notice, play dead or try to crawl.

Those flushed out into the fields didn't stand a chance. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying goes.

Those foolish or desperate enough to crawl, who draw attention with movement, are further shot down. What little cover the fields provide, old logs or decaying wood structures, become ripped apart by bullets piece by piece, until there's nothing adequate left, and those still cowering are pinned down with nowhere to go.

They're dead. Still breathing, but no chance to remain that way, you realize. Its tragic, and sick, and there's a feeling of sympathetic dread deep in your gut. All the same, there's nothing that can be done, Bookman tells you in hushed tones.

You nod, but you and him are alone in this realization, because against solid reason, several soldiers holed up in the semi-safety of the trenches leap out, and rush to rescue them, firing as they sprint.

Part of you, for just a flicker, _wants_ to believe they'll make it, like some sort of heroic survival tale you might hear too often, everyone sighing with relief at the _happy ending_.

This is not that ending.

Body's snap and jolt with a peppering of bullets, slumping to the ground gracelessly. There are caterwauls of grief, of _rage_ , from those still standing, _still running_ , still staying back and covering their charge with open fire, but its all for nothing in the end.

Just a damn waste of life that didn't have to end.

 _Pointless_.

And as the fighting drags on – _pointless_ – and the death count continues to rise – _pointless_ – and officers threaten to shoot their own men should they retreat _– pointless –_ a desperate, detached question enters your young, shaken mind.

What is this all _for_?


End file.
